One Clear, Cold Night at Green Lake

I spent a few hours one cold evening recently at Green Lake, taking long exposure photos near Evans Pool. I love these small expeditions experimenting with ambient light, especially on a clear night with plenty of moonlight, or when it is breezy and there has been rain; surfaces reflect light back to the camera like a gift.

A good headlamp definitely comes in handy, as does a remote shutter release. The one thing I really needed, as I discovered, was some fingerless gloves. It can be awkward shooting at night, using only ambient light, especially when you can barely see the area that you are trying to photograph well enough to focus. But, when my hands repeatedly got so cold I couldn't feel the controls on my camera, well, let's just say I speedily ordered a pair of fingerless gloves after I got home that night...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pike Place Market on the First Evening of 2015

To begin the new year, I went to the SAM's monthly Free First Thursday, followed by a delicious dinner in their restaurant next door, Taste. After that I took my camera and tripod and wandered down to the Pike Place Market. I was stunned by the beautiful colors and lights to be seen here after hours, especially during the holiday season!

After taking some shots at the market I wandered around the area and found a few other views to photograph, including one scene with a smokestack that reminded me subtly of the visual style of the movie Blade Runner. I wound up my evening while walking back to my car by stopping to take a self portrait through a mirror in a Mexican folk art storefront. Hope you enjoy the photos...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Sun Sets on the Last Day of 2014

I spent the last few hours of daylight, on New Year's Eve, at Golden Gardens Park, in Seattle. It is a  favorite place of mine to watch the sunset, be near the water, or just sit and reflect. I caught that magical time of day when the sun is low on the horizon, and turns everything to gold.

From meditating on the incredibly intricacy of the thick network of limbs on the tree below, which remind me so much of our own human veins and nerve fibers, to simply drinking in the cold sunlight, I  bid adieu to 2014. I stood on a pier and watched the sun as it began below the horizon, and as I did so, the rippling water moved away from me, and I had the sense that what had been was sailing away never to burden me again. My feeling was, I begin again, fresh and new, spontaneous in the now, and the past is done and gone...